Springer API Challenge 2.0 open now

New York / Heidelberg, Springer announces the Springer API (Application Programming Interface) Challenge 2.0, its second competition for original, non-commercial applications using its freely available metadata and content APIs. The Springer API Challenge 1.0 asked participants to develop applications that offer users new ways to find, visualize, and manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s large and growing content database. The Springer API Challenge 2.0 is a goal-directed competition to develop more specific solutions using the following APIs:

Springer Metadata API - Provides metadata for over five million online documents (e.g. journal articles, book chapters, protocols). The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that provides a novel search solution based on an analysis of trends in the metadata.

SpringerImages API - Provides images and related text for over 300,000 free images available on www.SpringerImages.com. The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that uses image recog-nition to analyze, compare, or search images.

SpringerOpen Access API - Provides metadata, full-text content, and images for over 80,000 open access articles from BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) and SpringerOpen (www.springeropen.com) journals. The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that uses se-mantic modeling to interpret characteristics of individual full-text documents and/or to analyze relationships among full-text documents.

Mashups of Springer APIs with open sourced (and non-copyrighted) data are encouraged.

Participants may be individuals or teams of up to three members. They must register for a user account with Mashery, a provider of API management services, and apply to Springer for an API key. They are bound by the provisions of the official rules and the Springer API Terms of Use (available at http://dev.springer.com). The completed application must be submitted via email, including a brief description, an indication as to which goal is being addressed, and contact information to SpringerAPIChallenge@springer.com.

Entries must be submitted by 31 May 2012 and will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary panel of judges who will rank them on relevance to the stated goal, creativity and originality, user experience and design, and value and benefit. First, second, and third place winners will be awarded cash prizes of US$ 8,000, US$ 4,000 and US$ 2,000 respectively. The winners will be announced in June 2012.

Springer is a leading global scientific publisher of books and journals, delivering quality content through innovative information products and services. It publishes close to 500 academic and professional society journals. Springer is part of the publishing group Springer Science+Business Media. In the science, technology and medicine (STM) sector, the group publishes around 2,000 journals and more than 7,000 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and more than 5,500 employees.